Zouhair Yahyaoui

On June 4, 2000, not long after his lively magazine, TuneZine, invited readers to vote on whether Tunisia was a "republic, a kingdom, a zoo or a prison," Yahyaoui was arrested at a Tunis cybercafé by six plainclothes police officers who did not have an arrest warrant. Upon his arrest, he was not informed of the charges levied against him and was prohibited from speaking with any of the 20 lawyers that stepped forward to represent him in court. His lawyers were also not allowed access to his file in preparation for the trial. The police officers who arrested him accompanied him home, searched it without a warrant, and confiscated his personal computer files before taking him into custody.

His whereabouts were unknown for the five following days. During this time, he has reported that he was subjected to three sessions of "suspension," a method of torture whereby the victim is suspended by his arms with his feet barely touching the ground. After the third session, he revealed his website's access code, allowing the Tunisian authorities to remove tunezine.com from the Internet.

Yahyaoui was initially charged with "publishing information known to be untrue" under article 309 of the Tunisian Penal Code. He was later sentenced to one year for "propagation of false news," and a further year and four months for non-authorized usage of an Internet connection" and "theft from an employer." on June 20, 2002 by the Tribunal de Première Instance in Tunis. Yahyaoui did not attend this hearing, declaring that he "did not trust a justice that followed orders [from above]."

Current status:Yahyaoui was re-tried on July 3, 2002. On July 10, his sentence was reduced on appeal from twenty-eight months to two years. He is now said to be in a prison some 28 kilometers from Tunis.

Since Mr. Yahyaoui's incarceration, he has endured appalling prison conditions and ill treatment. It is reported that in September 2002, Mr. Yahyaoui began suffering from acute kidney problems. When he refused to take an undisclosed medicine to ease his kidney pains, two guards reportedly assaulted him, injuring his back. He was eventually admitted to hospital on September 13, 2002 for a brief period. Mr. Yahyaoui's cell is infested with cockroaches and he suffers from scabies as a direct result of squalid living conditions and infrequent access to water. Mr. Yahyaoui has gone on several hunger strikes to protest the intolerable detention conditions that he suffers. (Pen.org)

Zouhair received a conditional release on 18 November 2003 after more than 18 months in prison.

Tunisian dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui has died at the age of 36 of a heart attack.